Factors Affecting Students Changing Their Major to Information Systems Thabang Serumola
Lisa F. Seymour
CITANDA Department of Information Systems University of Cape Town Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7700, South Africa Tel: +27 216504259
CITANDA Department of Information Systems University of Cape Town Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7700, South Africa Tel: +27 216504259
[email protected]
[email protected]
ABSTRACT The growing shortage of skills in information communication technology (ICT) is a major concern in Southern Africa and globally. ICT is critical to national development and business success and therefore the need for skills is growing. Yet despite high job availability and high starting salaries in ICT, students are not choosing to study in ICT fields. In this study we look at the Information Systems (IS) major where prior studies have found that misperceptions of the major exist in schools. Yet at university these misperceptions can be addressed. In this inductive and retroductive case study we identify the factors that students consider when changing their major to IS. The perceived value of IS is found to play a major role in students choosing the IS major. Events that trigger the process of changing major to IS include a loss of passion for previous major or difficulty in previous major as well as enjoyment of the introductory IS course. The paper argues for a generic first year for students as well as a focus on enjoyment and skills aligned to IS professional practice in introductory IS courses.
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.0 [Information S ystems]: General.
General Terms M anagement, Human Factors.
Keywords ICT skills, Information systems careers, IS major, computing curricula.
1. INTRODUCTION South Africa faces a shortage of information communication technology (ICT) skills, outsourcing of some ICT skills and
emigration of highly skilled ICT personnel [26]. These problems are not restricted to South Africa and are felt globally. Statistics produced by the United States (US) Department of Labour for 2010-2020 show that 73% of new United States Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM ) jobs through 2020 will be in Computing [13]. Because of the constantly evolving ICT industry new ICT job roles are being introduced; such as IT Architect, Social Network M anager and Web Specialists [14]. As more ICT jobs are created, skills shortages will increase [34]. Increased student enrolments into computing disciplines could provide relief, but it seems that enrolments are not increasing sufficiently [23, 25, 29]. This combination of factors is contributing to a growing ICT skills shortage [5, 14, 17, 19]. This is particularly concerning as ICT is the platform on which most, if not all, businesses depend on to carry out daily operations [11]. There are many reasons why working in ICT is attractive. Firstly, ICT careers have one of the most competitive salaries in the world. IS majors received the highest average starting salary among the US Class of 2014 [40] and computer science and IS are the only non-engineering majors among the top 10 highest paid bachelor's graduates [39]. Secondly, ICT careers are evolving as new ICT jobs types are created and new technologies are introduced and this gives ICT careers their competitive edge [12, 14]. A decline in computing discipline enrolments therefore raises concerns as to whether students are making adequate career choices and whether students are knowledgeable about the different computing careers available to them [26]. IS is one of the 5 computing disciplines and prior studies have shown that the IS discipline suffers from significant misperceptions in schools [46]. Yet these misperceptions can be addressed at University where students can reconsider their choice of major. This study therefore investigates factors influencing students changing their major to IS at university.
2. IS CAREER CHOICE LITERATURE Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). SACLA 2015, 02-03 July, Johannesburg, South Africa
Factors affecting students choosing IS as a major can be divided into Social, Structural and Individual according to the Adya and Kaiser computing student career choice model [1]. Social factors include student perceptions concerning the IS major, jobs opportunities, career, importance and relevance in society. Structural factors represent institutional support available to 27
students in pursuit of their careers. Structural factors include lecturer/career advisor, technology access and institutional educational arrangements [35]. For example, female students and students with low computer literacy have been found to rely on university structures as a source of learning more than male and experienced students [45].
The introductory first year IS course focuses on students understanding information systems within organisations as well as their broader impact. In addition students get introduced to computational thinking techniques used in software engineering; analyse data using M icrosoft Excel; and design and implement simple applications using a programming language.
Very little research has been done to investigate the structural factors impacting career/major choice [1]. Lotriet, M atthee and Alexander [35] researched one aspect of the Ayda and Kaiser [1] career choice model, namely, internet connectivity and its impact on computing majors. They criticised the career choice model as their findings showed that structural and individual factors are not independent.
A list of 18 students who had transferred into IS during 2014 was obtained from the Student Records Office. The most common prior majors were Accounting (6 students) and Finance (3 students). The researcher sent an individual email to these students inviting them for an interview. Semi-structured interviews [38] were conducted with the 8 students who responded (Table 1). The research questions and themes from the literature formed the basis for the interview questions. A limitation to this study is that not all students invited responded and this could have introduced bias. The sample size of eight is deemed to be sufficient for qualitative analysis although more responses would have been preferred and theoretical saturation was not reached.
Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) shows how basic career interests develop over time and has been applied to career choices made by IS students by many authors [2, 6, 17, 27, 35]. SCCT gives the two dominant individual factors in career choice as selfefficacy and outcome expectations. Factors that affect students choosing any computing degree and how the factors relate to students during their high school years have been researched [5, 6, 16, 17, 37, 46]. Yet, not much research has been conducted after students have completed their first year of University. M uch of the research on perceptions is based on pupil misperceptions and lack of access to technology. Yet once students have completed first year at university and a mandatory computing course these misperceptions should have been addressed and lack of technology should no longer play a role. Therefore what are the other factors that students consider when choosing to major in Information Systems? Previous researchers have argued that these factors are complex and inter-related and need in-depth exploration. Hence this research aimed to determine why students change their major to IS after their first year at university. The context was the University faculty where students irrespective of their major follow a mostly common first year and can change their major at the end of their first year in most cases without extending the length of their degree.
Inductive and retroductive approaches were used for the research. An inductive approach observes phenomena and develops a theory [22] while retroduction seeks to explain sequence of events by postulating and identifying mechanisms which are capable of producing them [20]. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data inductively [10]. As part of the retroductive approach, students were also asked to describe the sequence of events that transpired before they changed their major. Some factors affecting students choosing IS as a major confirmed some of the prior theoretical models and therefore this research also had elements of deduction. Table 1. List of research participants Interview Code
Gender
Year they changed to IS
I1, I2, I8
M ale
Second Year
I3
M ale
Third Year
Accounting Computer and Electrical Engineering
I4
M ale
Third Year
Computer Science
3. METHOD
I5
M ale
Third Year
Accounting
A single interpretive case study was chosen for this research because it enabled a deep exploration into individuals and their behaviour [8]. The case chosen in this research was the Commerce Faculty at the University of Cape Town. Students have to choose a major when arriving, yet, with the exception of computer science and actuarial science, they have the freedom to change majors and only after the end of their first year does changing majors become restraining. For majors which include IS, Accounting, Economics, Finance, Marketing and Organisational Psychology the first year
I6
Female
Second Year
Actuarial Science
I7
M ale
Third Year
M arketing
The common first year courses include Accounting, Economics, Business Law, Mathematics, Statistics, Evidence Based M anagement and IS.
Previous Major
4. IS PERCEPTIONS FROM SCHOOLS STILL PREVALENT AT UNIVERSITY The assumption made is that misperceptions of majors would have been resolved by the end of first year at university and that students would have relatively equal access to technology provided by the university and have experienced improved computer efficacy by completing the introductory IS course. Yet students are reluctant to change majors and it became apparent in this research that factors which were prevalent in high school still affected interviewees. These factors were dominated by misperceptions of the value of IS and a lack of IS information. 28
boring and wanted to pursue his interest in Information
4.1 A lack of IS Information The comments by the students showed that they were not previously exposed to IS and hence this was why they did not choose IS. What was also mentioned was that IS was not mentioned by teachers and not advertised in high school recruitment. t it
He enjoyed the introductory course and was inspired by to th possible career paths and decided at the beginning of his second year to change to IS. Table 2. Result of inductive and retroductive analysis
[I8]. they only choose to do what they have been exposed to and have heard about. Too few people have heard about IS and so more people choose other B.Com. degrees [I1].
Factor
[I2]
4.2 Misperceptions of the value of IS Students expressed that their view of IS was skewed based on the information they received prior to university and based on what they saw at school. (France) I was told that there were not enough jobs. I realise now after a few years that it is actually the
very like prestigious, *inaudible*.....a lot of people go -
5. IS CAREER CHOICE FACTORS AT UNIVERSITY Considering the reluctance to change majors, the factors that drove some students to change their major to Information Systems were considered. As part of the inductive analysis 11 core themes emerged. The number of empirical observations or text extracts which were counted for each theme are listed in the Table 2. The relevant ranking of each theme was determined by the count of observations for the theme as well as the importance that interviewees gave to the theme. The retroductive analysis for each interview focused on the core sequence of events that led to a student changing their major to Information Systems. While a student might have referred to many themes only the dominant ones were selected. In the paragraph below and in Figure 1 the retroductive analysis for I1 is presented. prestigious and a lot of people go for accounting was in the accounting profession, therefore he chose accounting because it was familiar to him. Before he arrived at university he had no information regarding IS. After he arrived at University, he found accounting
loss of passion for previous major difficulty with previous major enjoyment of introductory IS course alternate options academic performance in introductory IS course S eeking IS information risk and uncertainty in changing major perceived value of IS
11 2 1 4
8
8
5 2
6
6
5
7
9
4 5
2
15 1 4
3
9
3 10
1
1
1
2
1
2
3
2
3
4
5
4
4
3
2
2
4
4
1
1
2 11
IS interest / preference 11 3 3 restrictions on choice of major/courses recruiter influence
1
2
3
3 4
3
5
5 6
4 5
This sequence of events leading to I1 changing his major to IS is also numbered in column I1 in Table 2. The same analysis was repeated for all interviewees and is presented in the relevant columns in Table 2 and is presented graphically in Figure 2. Dominant factors are in in bold font. Factors which triggered or started the process of changing major are referred to as trigger factors and are depicted in italicized font. Factors at the end of the process which preceded the event of actually changing major to IS are shown in shaded circles. In the following sections each theme will be discussed in the context of existing literature following their sequence in the retroductive analysis.
29
IS interest / preference
perceived value of IS
5.3 Enjoyment of Introductory IS Course Enjoyment of the introductory IS course ranked fifth in the list of factors that led to students choosing IS as a major, it was a factor that was essential to the process and was the trigger factor for one
enjoyment of introductory IS course
Seeking IS information
student. It also appeared to directly influence academic performance in the introductory IS course. Some students passed really well and were even performing better on the introductory course than on their major and this increased their self-efficacy. Hence Enjoyment for the introductory course sparked interest in the IS major. Studies have shown that enjoyment of a major is an
loss of passion for previous major
Changed Major to IS
intrinsic value and has a direct influence on intention to study [3]. Intrinsic motivation refers to the pleasure and satisfaction gained from performing a behaviour [18]. Enjoyment is also based on the experience that students have had working with computers [15].
Figure 1. Retroductive analysis for I1
5.1 Loss of Passion for Previous Major The second most dominant factor based on the number of empirical observations and the most dominant trigger factor was loss of passion for previous major. Students are reluctant to change their initial major and it seems that the dominant driver is a negative experience with their major as opposed to a positive experience with another potential major, 7 out of the 8 students who transferred into IS stated that the loss of passion for their previous major made them rethink their major. Quoting I5: I just continue with it reflected in their educational and professional aspirations [41]. Research has indicated that students primarily lose interest because of a lack of mentors, role models, and career guidance [43]. In contrast students in this research found their previous major tedious and draining.
5.2 Difficulty with Previous Major
Quoting I1: because I have experience doing things that are unenjoyable and When I did IS 1 I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed the part where you is just a drag. You have to do tutorials then you have to do the
Enjoyment of the first year introductory course is an important finding, students perceive that if they enjoy a course they would enjoy a career in that field.
5.4 Alternate options Searching for alternate or secondary options was ranked 6th in the reasons why students choose IS as a major. It often followed from students struggling academically in their initial major. Career choice can be linked to available options because students chose careers that they have been exposed to and have self-efficacy [5, 6, 25]. Some students referred to IS as not their first choice but due to their performance in their first choice or due to curriculum constraints in terms of changing to their best choice, they chose it as their alternate option as quoted here:
Difficulty with major was identified as a major factor contributing to and was the trigger factor for one student. Students expressed that the requirements for their
next IS courses and kind of forced myself through it and
previous majors were too high to fulfil or they were just not coping academically. Difficulty with a major can be linked to
[I7].
to studying and intellectual development [24]. Difficulty with major can cause students to reassess their academic standing and
I am
investigate steps to ensure that they are able to fulfil degree requirements. Sometimes it leads to changing degrees as is the case with the students who changed to IS quoted here: requirements for actuarial sciences were high and economics was 30
enjoyment of introductory IS course
IS interest / preference academic performance in introductory IS course
loss of passion for previous major
recruiter influence
Seeking IS information
alternate options
restrictions on choice of major/ courses
difficulty with previous major risk and uncertainty in changing major
perceived value of IS
Figure 2 S equence of factors affecting students changing to IS at university.
5.5 Academic Performance in introductory IS course Students are more likely to develop interests in a computing major when they feel confident about their capabilities to succeed [2]. Self-efficacy has been identified as the main factor when choosing a major/career [5, 6, 7, 28, 30, 33, 35, 42]. Self-efficacy is heightened through academic performance and thus influences major choice [5, 7, 33, 42]. In this study the realisation that IS was a good option was through academic performance in the introductory course. This theme mostly followed enjoyment of the introductory IS course. Some students even found that they performed better in the introductory IS course than in their majors hence this was a core reason for choosing IS: I3].
to do IS after marketing because I was getting 40s and
5.6 Seeking IS information Seeking information about IS through personal research and sources of information regarding IS was a core factor and step in the process of converting to IS for all respondents. All students did some personal research to gain understanding of the IS major before changing majors. Sometimes it led to directly changing majors but it also led to unearthing risk and uncertainty or curriculum restrictions. It was ranked as the fourth most important factor. The sources of information regarding IS included the Faculty handbook, student advisors, IS graduates and recruiters. Some students chose to identify students who had changed to IS and engaged with them. It is worth noting that students chose to speak to people they deemed reliable and knowledgeable. Quoting three respondents: year which is very generic to any degree and then I was like ok, I made out all of the possible degrees I can do, so too studied IS. First they gave me a hands on what the talked to student advisors but they do it from a very like, this is how long it will take you not the 31
interest me. Then I saw IS and CS in the booklet so I planned on changing to that and they said I could only
Students are known to seek information before making a decision about selecting a major. Previous research focusses on the seeking process prior to university where sources of information regarding choice of major include family experiences of higher education and information sharing between students, families, schools and universities [36].
5.7 Risk and uncertainty in changing major Students mentioned feelings of unease when deciding to change majors. I4 stated that even with all the information obtained regarding IS, he still felt unsure about his decision to change majors. I2 stated that he felt that it was a gamble to change majors and it was not a decision he took lightly when considering changing majors: Also like it was a bit of a gamble to change to
theory as Outcome Expectations. This has been recognised as a leading factor in SCCT [2, 6, 17, 19, 27, 35]. Job security and job availability refer to the ease with which students will obtain their first job after graduation and the availability of work throughout their careers [19]. Therefore long term prospects are very important when choosing a major. Students change majors because of the other attractions associated with the new major such as career possibilities, more interesting courses and available job openings in the field [32]. Previous research has referred to this as perceived usefulness of IS or perceived importance of IS skills [4, 5, 21, 25, 27].
5.9 IS interest / preference Interest and preference for IS curricula was the third most dominant factor. All students said they chose IS because they had a preference and interest for the major and that they felt their skills were aligned with IS. Interest and preference for IS was different for each interviewee. What was consistent was that students wanted to work on computers and practical courses rather than theoretical courses. person; I have enjoyed
changing a major, this is not like changing a course or dropping Students that register for courses expect the benefits of the course to exceed the costs of completing the course [9]. Students wanting to change majors faced this dilemma of evaluating whether it would be worth changing major or not. This is linked to the risk and uncertain feeling they felt because they were unsure of the outcomes.
5.8 Perceived value of IS Perceived value of IS was ranked as the dominant factor and had the highest count of empirical observations. The perceived value of IS can be linked to the outcomes, such as future salary and high job prospects, that students hope to achieve at the end of their university years and in their career. Furthermore, students said they valued the team based work environment offered by IS jobs
techno
The students wanted particular things out of IS. When choosing to change majors, they evaluated where their interests lied. Furthermore, most students in the study preferred more team work based work scenarios provided by IS. Students who choose computing majors have been shown to have a preference for an experimental style of learning rather than more structured approaches prevalent in non-computing majors [6]. Interest in IS certain major which is unique and individualistic. Interest has been for certain activities and actions [47]. A preference linked to vocational choice is often attributed to self-efficacy for the subject [42]. In this research this experience is largely attributed to the introductory IS course.
job opportunities that are open [I6]. people today...., everyone is doing something new and [I1]. route and learn a l
Inspiration by future outcomes/earnings has been documented in
5.10 Restrictions on choice of major/courses Restrictions on choice of major relates to external influences such as faculty, bursars and course requirements. I6 stated going to be a lot of competition for a Students who are given bursaries or financial aid that are linked to certain majors or have restricted time periods are also known to be less likely to transfer majors and hence financial aid reduces the flow of students between majors [31]. It is evident that some students lacked options when choosing their majors or even changing faculties. I8 expressed that: wanted to study IS and computer science and they said I needed to study more maths to add to computer science so I decided to just st This quote relates to institutional arrangements which can allow or disallow a student to study certain majors due to pre32
requisite courses. Requirements in certain majors cause students to re-evaluate their academic standing and options when choosing a major. In this study, changing to IS had relatively few consequences and was aligned with the number of years they were taking for their previous major or it increased the length of the degree by a year at most. This is mostly because of the common first year. A previous study did identify factors such as prerequisite courses as hindrances to students pursuing their choice of major [44]. There has been a call for Universities to put education in the hands of students and have less restrictive curricula and transfer rules [44].
5.11 Recruiter influence External recruiters at university career fairs can be seen as a motivating factor when changing majors. It is worth noting that there was not one particular theme relevant to how the recruiters information systems to students. Some recruiters mentioned amazing job opportunities whilst some mentioned the work involved. Recruiters show students that there are job opportunities and that IS is very relevant. Recruiters are seen as a powerful influence because they are external and are perceived to have less bias than student advisors and lecturers.
environment and therefore students that would enjoy working in a particular professional would also enjoy the introductory course. The identification of the dominant factors in this research is able to provide a practical guide to Universities. To increase enrolments in misunderstood majors, a generic first year for students is seen as critical and administrative or funding barriers to students changing their major need to be addressed. To increase enrolments IS Departments can also make changes to the first year introductory IS course as follows. Firstly, the course content needs to focus on skills more aligned to IS professional practices so students are able to identify with the relevant work interests and preference; secondly the course needs to be made more enjoyable and thirdly IS information and the value of IS needs to be conveyed in this course. However further research is still needed and this research only looks at a small facet of a broader field. What would be the unintended consequences of these suggested actions? What other factors can influence students changing their majors? How many students graduate in majors that they later regret? These are all questions worthy of future research.
7. REFERENCES not recruiting but advertising, talking about how he used to do something else but changed to IS and then he loved
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talking to a lady working in Foschini groups who said
[2] Akbulut, A. and Looney, C. 2007. Inspiring students to pursue computing degrees. Communications of the ACM, 50(10), 67-71.
6. CONCLUSION Limited increases in computing discipline enrolments [29] are problematic when there is a simultaneous rise in demand for ICT professionals. Research has shown that t he IS discipline is misunderstood by pupils in schools which contributes to low enrolment at university. In this case study in the Commerce faculty of UCT we researched students changing their major to Information Systems after their first year of university. We argue that after one year at university misperceptions from school should have been addressed. The inductive and retroductive analysis investigated the factors that influence the process of changing major to IS. The perceived value of IS, such as future salary and high job prospects is found to play the dominant role in students changing to the IS major but is not the initial cause of them considering the change. In this case, the triggering events for changing a major include a loss of passion or difficulty in a current major and enjoyment of an alternate introductory course. These factors can be generalised outside of this case setting and to other majors and hence this research is of theoretical relevance as it adds to the literature on factors impacting career choice in general. The experience of students in first year courses needs to be aligned with the experiences that professionals would face in their work
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